Google Scholar for the Humanities and Social Sciences

It's training week as a Graduate Academic Assistant at the Humanities and Social Sciences Division at UBC's Koerner Library. My interviewers at HSS weren't kidding when they asked me if I was prepared for boot camp during the last week of August. They were smiling when they said it, and I naively assumed they were facetious. How wrong I was!

The training has been wonderful though; it's enough to last me for the next few jobs. While I've been introduced to the wide array of areas and subjects of HSS librarianship, including maps & atlas, government publications, journals and microforms, and even numeric data files, nothing could prepare me for the reference desk training, which has been gruelling to say the least (but very educational).

One very special tool that I had taken away with me from my library and research experience at the Biomedical Branch Library at VGH, Hamber Library at the Children's and Women's Health Centre, as well as the Centre of Applied Research for Mental Health and Addictions has been my experience working with PubMed and Google Scholar.

First, Google Scholar. One handy little skill that I've picked up is finding articles which have incomplete citations. By simply typing in part of the title (with quotations around it), chances are that the article or abstract will be available. And from a campus networked computer, the link might even have full-article access via e-link. Prior to Google Scholar, this was mainly possible only through Web of Science, which was limited to the Sciences. However, Google Scholar has opened the door (if only ajar) for the humanities and social sciences.

Second, PubMed. To date, there is still no tool in the humanities and social sciences which can compare to the amazing usefulness of PubMed's ability to search for incomplete citations. At GAA training, we're taught to use a variety of methods, from going to Subject Guides to consulting Wikipedia when searching for articles with incomplete or incorrect citations. However, in the health sciences, one can simply enter the author and page number or year of publication, and voila: the article can be retrieved quite easily, and often with links to similar articles. As I am perfecting the art of searching, I keep hearkening back to PubMed and wonder, wouldn't it be more effective if we also do the same for other subject areas? With so many database vendors (Ebsco, Wilson, Lexis Nexis) all in dire competition with each other, I doubt that there will be a day when one database will do it all. Or am I wrong?

Demise of LIS?

The recent announcement of the dissolution of the School of Informatics at the University of Buffalo is another example of the marginalization of the profession and discipline of Library and Information Science. Its abandonment isn't the first, nor will it be the last.

Why are library schools still being closed down even though the need for information specialists continue to rise? Is it the stale image of the librarian? Is it the measly wages? Regardless of the reasons, academia seem to enjoy pushing LIS programs around. (Michael Lorenzen's "Education Schools and Library Schools: A Comparison of Their Perceptions by Academia" offers a fascinating analysis). In the ugly case of the LIS program at Buffalo, it was first the merger with the Department of Communications in 2001, then now, the arbitrary insertion into the Faculty of Education. It's gotten so bad that the library school barely passed ALA accreditation (it's been given a "conditional" status).

When will the madness stop? It's time for information professionals to stand up and do something.

Good to Great

If there's but one business book you ever read in your life, Good To Great should be on the shortlist. Jim Collins, a former Stanford Graduate School of Business professor and his research team discovered that there are seven similarities that all successful organizations encompass. I highly recommend this book because its points are relevant to not only for profit businesses, but also libraries and similar organizations. Here are the books main findings:

(1) First "Who", Then "What" - Hire the right people, then formulate a plan. It sounds strange, but based on his research of American companies, Collins unveils the fact that all the successful ones are run by Level 5 Leaders, humble individuals who put their organizations before themselves, who would do anything and everything to achieve success for their company, not for themselves. Although they are often shy and humble, they possess steel determination to get things done. Such people will recruit similar individuals; moreover, once the team is created, the leader will set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation.

(2) Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lost Faith) - Success is not achieved in one day. All successful companies were built over a long stretch, day by day, bit by bit. Using the Stockdale Paradox an analogy, companies that drop out are those who are most optimistic, who often base their strategies on lofty goals within shortest timeframe possible. The successful ones don't use a clock to time progress; they use patience and faith, never knowing when they'll achieve success, but only that it will happen eventually.

(3) The Hedgehog Concept - When the right and patient people are on board, only then can a plan be formulated. Taking Isaiah Berlin's analogy of the hedgehog and the fox, in which the "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing," Collins argues that great companies have one idea and sticks by it no matter what, whereas mediocre organizations are all over the map and changes directions on a dime.

(4) A Culture of Discipline - When there is discipline, hierarchy is no longer needed. With disciplined thought, the same goes for bureaucracy. Hence, the best companies are those with employees who are hardworking, respectful, and ultimately enjoy what they are doing.

(5) Technology Accelerators - Great companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use it ignite transformation; rather, they apply technology to forward their hedgehog concept, the big overall plan.

(6) The Flywheel and the Doom Loop - Success cannot occur like a revolution; there is never a "defining" miracle moment. Instead, it happens in small increments (like a wheel), turn upon turn, and building momentum slowly and steadily.

(7) Built to Last - Success and greatness are not defined by money. Instead, the goal is intrinsic excellence, simply creating something so that it can endure and be meaningful at the same time . Hence, I find the book intriguing because it is not only limited to businesses. It can be applied to any type of organization. It's worth a read, even if one is not looking to build a corporate dynasty.

The Informationist of the 21st Century

Things are coming together. And a session for UBC Pharmacy residents titled, Search skills for UBC pharmacy residents:Appraised tools, PubMed and even Google provided the perfect capstone. What I had originally anticipated as a teaching session turned out to be much more than I had expected, for the 2.5 long session gave me greater insight into the role of the information professional within the entire rubric of the field of health science and medicine.

Things finally make sense now. I must say I disagree with Pharmacists and Reference Librarians, a blog entry that had confounded me when I first encountered it a while back ago. It argues that the reference librarian is not far off from the pharmacist, for both have lost their relevance - the librarian to search engines while the pharmacist to the retail drug companies.

But that is a gross overstatement. If anything, working in two different hospital libraries as well as a health science research centre has given me the knowledge, experience, and skills to confidently say that the information professional plays a huge role. First, a project at CARMHA on primary care, revealed that pharmacists are on the often on the "front lines" of healthcare, for they are often the first to be consulted by patients with medical inquiries. Pharmacists are much more than mere pill counters. And second, introducing an academic to Google Scholar proved to be not only a humbling experience, but also a reminder of how far off we are to being a truly "information society."

With evidence-based medicine (EBM) ever so important in the health professions, pharmacists are needed and expected to have solid information searching and retrieval skills. This is where the librarian/information professional comes in. We not only find information and teach others (such as pharmacists) information literacy, but we also have a mandate to keep up to date with new findings and techniques on such new technologies. Hence, how can one not vehemently rebuke that pharmacy is "just a bit further along the road to annihilation than librarianship is"? It's perhaps appropriate for the informationist stand up and take a bow.

If You Build It, They Will Come

What makes a “good” post-secondary institutional library? Is it the collections? The atmosphere? Or the photocopiers? Unfortunately, students rarely (usually never) visit libraries to attend a teaching session by a particular librarian as they would for a well-published academic professor. Frade and Washburn’s recent article, The University Library:
The Center of a University Education? studies the recent trends of how the library is being used by its patrons.

Not surprisingly, numbers are down: there are simply less people walking through the gates. The survey reveals that two core library services, instruction and reference, were ranked very low in terms of patron’s importance. Rather, the study found that patrons came to the library for study, using the internet and computer labs, copy machines, courtesy phones, and signing out books.

In the second part of the research, the study found that two services increased the usage of the library: (1) extended hours; and (2) the implementation of an Information Commons. Interestingly, usage statistics increased during the extended hours, particularly in the area of the IC’s, where there are multimedia computer workstations and plenty of study space are located.

The study doesn’t surprise me much. The library will always be the core of the academic institution. Perhaps times have changed. Although reference and instruction may not be as highly regarded as in the past, that doesn’t render the library and the librarian as ineffective. Far from it, the library will forever be a place where learning and quiet study takes place. As many institutions are advocating cutting back hours to keep costs intact, the library seems the most convenient scapegoat, and hours are particularly the easiest to lop since apparently the numbers are down.

But are they? As this study shows, perhaps more emphasis needs to be placed on tracking when patrons are entering the gates. Unlike bookstores, which keeps statistics on hourly gate counts, most libraries do not (not even the big ones). Just cutting back the hours without careful consultation is clearly a costly mistake, for both the patron and the library itself.

The Future Library or Traditionalist Paranoia?

Jeannette Woodward's Creating the Customer-Driven Library: Building on the Bookstore Model offers fascinating insights into the emerging bookstore-concept library. Woodward argues that, for the library to not only survive, but thrive, it must adapt to the retail bookstore model of tailoring services and products to the tastes of the patron. The Richmond Public Library has adopted this philosophy almost to the tee. However, what makes it unique also makes it controversial. Here's why:

(1) Customers service - The RPL prefers "customer" over "patrons." It's all semantics, but behind this innocuous phrase is a pure concept of pleasing the person who steps through the gates. In a way, is not every library's mandate essentially the same, particularly for "public" libraries?

(2) Merchandise - Calling books "products" seems weird, but referring to them as "merchandise" might be ludicrous for some. Put it any way you like, a duck is a duck. Quack, quack. Nonetheless, language does make a difference in the way human cognition operates. By focusing on promoting the items in the library, it does highlight the importance of what is at stake. Is it a bad thing to "sell" what you have?

(3) Self-service checkouts - 95% of the circulation is done by self-service automation. Even holds are self-service. Understandably, traditionalists are upset that such a trend will ultimately displace the library staff, namely the paraprofessional and support staff. The RPL disagrees. It believes that such a system frees up staff to do other customer-service tasks.

(4) "Walking the floor" - In adopting this retail concept, the customer will always be served and the products continually replenished. Staff members are to proactively walk around the stacks and offer assistance to those in need. However, at the RPL, this is the case for certain sections, namely the Popular Titles section, where it is an amazingly dynamic area of the building.

(5) Automated scheduling - Democracy or pseudo-outsourcing? Call it what you will, by allowing auxiliary staff to pick and choose their own schedules, the RPL allows ultimate flexibility. But why not just hire more full-time staff instead of piecemeal? By doing so, the RPL argues that it maximizes on the full potential of its open hours (it has the longest hours of any public library system in North America). But does it to save in other areas?

(6) Themes - To a certain extent, this is not new. However, RPL takes it to another level, and offers new themes regularly, such as "Asian Reads" or "Biography Lovers." In such themed areas, books are picked off the shelves and placed together.

(7) Outsourcing of cataloguing - RPL doesn't create its own catalogues. Nor does it even copy-catalogue. Everything is done by contract. Does it work? Well, it does free up the essential revenue for other areas, such as the latest DVD's and more newer titles. In the end, the question is, does the customer/patron benefit?

(8) Reference - The traditional reference desk, where the librarian snuggly sits for hours on end, quietly working away on the computer is replaced by Information kiosks.

(9) Signage - Not unlike bookstores, RPL's sign are sharp and attractive. The signs say it all. "Kids Place" replaces the traditional Children's section. Is it a sellout to the bookstore? Or are we simply using a good, simple idea and applying it to the library?

(10) Coffee machines - Traditionalists cringe at the thought of drinking in the library. However, RPL promotes it by having machines right inside. Although somewhat teleological, Woodward argues that since patrons are going to drink/eat at home with the books, we should perhaps be at peace with the inevitable.

So far, RPL has been very successful. In my opinion, location is everything. Gate counts are one of the highest in Canada. Yet, what works in Richmond might not work in Abbotsford or Victoria. The demographics in Richmond make sense: young, hip, urban, and middle class. The sleekness of the RPL suits such a chic clientele. But will such a model last? Time will tell.

Email: Beware. . . or at least be careful

"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing," says Rosalind in As You Like It. How true Shakespeare's words still ring! Although information professionals are relied upon to find and retrieve timely and accurate information, they are ironically at risk of running into occupational hazards, personally and professionally.

Why do you ask? Besides addiction (which deserves a future blog posting upon itself), email messages can easily be misinterpreted and written out of context. Tom Van Vleck's "The Risks of Electronic Communication" offers an excellent "how to" guide on how to properly use email. I've summarized his salient points.

(1) Jokes. What appears lightheartedly humourous may offend others. People are more offended by offensive jokes through emails than through in-person commentaries.

(2) Anger. Emotions run high online. Without reading them carefully, emotional messages can trigger strong emotions from the recipient, often taken out of context (by both sides). Hence, the solution? Pick up the phone!

(3) Sarcasm and Irony. Some people read hastily; others just take words literally and don't understand that you really meant the opposite of what you wrote. As Van Vleck warns, even a smiley or "just kidding" won't always work.

(4) Criticism. Don't do it online, even if temptations run high. Even criticism of trivial matters can be construed out of context. People are touchy; if they feel attacked, they attack back.

(5) Late Night. I like this one the most: messages composed late at night can cause serious damage. As Van Vleck points out, some mysterious influence of the brain gets triggered after a certain hour, 9PM or so, which makes us think we're typing in sensible messages, when in fact they are subject to severe misunderstanding. Hence, the best solution is to save it in a file and look at it tomorrow morning. (Guilty as charged!)

(6) Personal Remarks. Making derogatory remarks about others is a bad idea. Doing it behind their back is worse. Doing it in public is deadly. Electronic messages are the last place for any kind of uncomplimentary remark. Sometimes, that FWD can turn into a REPLY, and hence, the nasty email remark gets sent to the very person you don't want reading it. (Guilty again!)

Hence, for the information professional, "handling" information/records is every bit as essential as searching, organizing, and disseminating. Perhaps it's time that proper usage of email be included somewhere in the LIS core? Have we taken email for granted, perhaps blinded by its supposed simplicity when in fact its more complicated than we realize? Amazingly, Van Vleck's article, written 11 years ago, is still as relevant as it is today as it was then, if not more so. If I had only read it when it first came out, I would be so much better off!

Open Access, Open Search, and Social Tagging

It's summer, and with the heat, ideas too can melt and meld together into a mishmash of incoherent mess. Recently, I've been introduced to a variety of online tools. With some reflection, I believe that three "trends" if we can call them that, have emerged from online environment which are highly relevant to the information professional.

(1) Social tagging - Flickr, Del.icio.us, Wikipedia, and Library Thing are but a few of the online tools for which users can freely search for information (an items) through the creation of hyperlinks without the constraints of controlled vocabulary or rigid taxonomy structures. Anyone and everyone can create his or her own terms, post them, and share them other users. The question is, is such social tagging (ethnoclassification, folksonomies, or collaborative tagging) a new thing? Or is it an outgrowth of an existing online world which we've been using all along since the inception of the internet? Only now, we have terms for them.

(2) Open Access - Journals are slowly integrating themselves into the online world. Open Access is perhaps one of the hidden gems of the internet that is slowly emerging as an important tool in the academic/professional community. Library Student Journal, Journal of the Association for History and Computing, and Biomedical Digital Libraries are but an inch of the light years of open access journals readily available for perusal. Yet, recent controversy surrounding open access is just how "open" is it? Some journals charge its writers for a fee.

(3) Open Searching - Pubmed is one of the shining examples of how collaboration can open up the world of information to users in need. It's a matter of time, that it opens up to other avenues beyond the health sciences world and into the humanities, social sciences, and business. It still intrigues me the shroud of secrecy in the legal world, where Lexis Nexis and Westlaw charge the users by the minute. Although it does promote the librarian to a higher status of importance in the particular locale, does it not make an intriguing contrast with the "openess" of Pubmed?

So with this said, the question remains, is the librarian useful in this online world? Ab-so-lute-ly. As an information professional, librarians are perfect for such fact-finding and information searching missions. Not only do librarians have the knowledge of cataloguing/classification essential for a deeper understanding of how information is organized, they also have the social skills (and interest) to help users look for what they are searching for -- they're good at customer service! Because if you think about it, the online world is a jungle, and librarians are trained to sort through all that mess.

Librarians and Teaching Styles

Before entering the MLIS program at UBC, I had never realized how important teaching is in librarianship. Today, I had the chance to see one librarian in action, and it was fascinating to analyze his teaching rather than on his teaching content. On top of the usual core competencies of LIS (bibliographic control, refence, management, collection development, and info technology), I would add teaching as part of the mix.

Because there are numerous teaching styles, there can not be "categories" that cleanly and clearly define such styles. (Although, in Confucius' case, his disciples created several schools of thoughts based on different interpretations of their master's teachings).

Regardless of styles, or different schools of thought, teaching is an integral part of the librarian's work. He must not only present the material in a coherent manner, but also be engaging to his audience at the same time. In fact, teaching for librarians is probably more difficult than "traditional" teachers such as college professors, high school and elementary teachers. Whereas these teachers have a fairly predictable group of students, librarians have to constantly adjust and tailor their teaching styles according to their different audiences. For example, the approach that a librarian takes when teaching a class of undergraduates how to use databases might be completely different than how they teach a group of university professors how to start a weblog account.

A valuable and intriguing website for any information professional interested in improving his or her teaching skills is LibraryInstruction.com, which offers great lesson plans.

Leadership and Management

Recently, a librarian manager discussed with me his managerial philosophy. Managing people has always piqued my interest, as I see it as a combination of teaching, parenting, and coaching. Incidentally, I came across a fascinating article, Leadership or Management: Expectations for Heads of Reference Services in Academic Libraries, from Reference Librarian which nicely delves into the issues that we were discussing. (The same Volume: 39 Issue: 81's issue offers other articles related to the topic of library management).

In the organizational hierarchy, the most difficult position is the “front-line manager” who are the lower-level managers who supervise the operational activities of the library. Although it can be seen that they serve as the link between the management and the non-management staff, it can be construed that they are often squeezed into unenviable positions, making decisions which pleases neither the top nor the bottom.

Unaeze argues that management and leadership are not the same. While management plan budgets, organize the staff, solve problems, and provide stability, leadership requires establishing direction, motivating people, and producing change. A list of traits are analyzed, such as courage, decisiveness, flexibility, and time management.

I’ve had some super bosses but also have had mediocre ones. As important as Unaeze’s points are, my experiences offers some observations of management from the employee's perspective.

(1) Humour – Laughter often brings out the best in us. I find that using humour – even if the punch line fails – generates morale and eases the burden of the workday. The best bosses I’ve had (as well as teachers) have been those who took the time during breaks to come out and crack a few jokes, talk about the missed penalty, or just how wonderful a movie Back to the Future was.

(2) Trust – Managers don’t always need to be judicial. Sometimes, discrete should be traded in for a good chat with employees. It fosters trust. Of course, confidential discussions will be always be at risk, but as the saying goes, with high risk comes high rewards.

(3) The Human Touch – The best managers I have had are those who show their vulnerabilities. Cynicism, despondency, animosity are what makes us all common. I am often touched after personal chats with the supervisor, or when he or she spills a few personal anecdotes about the roadblocks that he or she faced along the way. With humility comes communication, and with that, a better, more motivated team.

(4) Hardwork – Even if the manager is not working on a task, he must appear as if he is, just for the sake of the team. Motivation and example come from the top, and if the leader doesn’t show it, then the staff is doomed to follow. I once had difficulty cutting some tape for urgent delivery from a busy retail bookstore. The manager brusquely took it out of my hand, sheared it with her own teeth, then resumed whatever task she was doing. Job done, problem solved. The experience left an indelible impression in my mind; it helped me realize that managing isn’t just about conceptualizing and brooding in a spacious office.

(5) Generosity - As the author Robert Kiyosaki once said, if you want to make money, you also have to give away money. And do it all without the expectation of any returns. Hence, I truly believe the best managers are those who are not shy to divulge "secrets of the trade" to others, and I most admire those who take on mentorship roles. In a profession which relies on information exchange and dissemination, what better way than to multiply your own information gathering talents?

The Scholar versus the Invisible

In refuting the findings of Bergman’s size of the unreachable areas of the internet called the “invisible web,” Exploring the Academic Invisible Web argues that that no single library alone will be able to index the invisible web, let alone the Academic Invisible Web (AIW).

The article’s arguments are interesting when used to analyze the effectiveness of search engines, such as Google and its counterpart, Google Scholar. In the author’s opinions, the AIW can be effectively indexed only through cooperation of portals, that is, combining Google with Scirus, BASE, and Vascoda. Only by balancing the strengths and weaknesses of each can the AIW be properly mined.

The article offers a fascinating complement to a recent article, The Depth and Breadth of Google Scholar, which argues that one of Scholar’s weaknesses is its bias towards the sciences. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg; here are others:

(1) Broken Links – What makes Google strong also makes it weak. While citation analysis offers integrity to its sources, it unfortunately has a “blindspot” to sources that are single-paged entities which are put up on the internet solely not for linkage. There are numerous pages like this on the so-called “invisible” web, which Google does not catch, while others such as Yahoo! might.

(2) Currency - While Google Scholar has a plethora of sources, not all of it is recent. In fact, it might be detrimental for the health sciences if new discoveries are left at the bottom of the pile because they are not as cited as much as the older documents.

(3) Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility – With information saturation, the tradeoffs are up to the user’s needs, and requires Rangananthian philosophical debate to resolve. While Google provides a great deal of information, it requires users themselves to sort through the mass of information.

(4) Indexing – Although citation analysis is reliable, there is still too much grey literature floating in cyberspace. Until Google can somehow reach into these areas, it is still an incomplete tool. One possibility is its emulation of the Dublin Core, which can create a generic uniformity for everything posted on the internet. Although only apipedream, imagine the possibilities!

As someone once commented, relying Google for critical information can be like using an “axe instead of a scalpel” in surgery. Although it cannot replace the librarian professional, it does offer a nice complement to the team.

All the World’s a Stage

One thing I learned about librarianship is the amount of responsibilities and different roles required for this profession. Recently, I read A Dramaturgical Perspective on Academic Libraries, which makes a fascinating comparison between libarians and performers. In it, Brian Quinn points out that dramaturgical theory has 6 themes which relate to the library:

(1) Performance – a librarian is always an acting, from answering reference questions to directing staff meetings. In the library, he plays the role as information gatekeeper, but outside of the facilities, he is a son, father, husband, and/or multiple other roles. It is interesting though that the higher the position in the administration hierarchy, the greater the performance is required.

(2) Teamwork – All plays need a cast, and such is the case with libraries. Librarians often help each other out with reference questions when they are stuck, very much like an actor who helps out with an awkward pause when another player has forgotten his or her line.

(3) Regions – Performances take place at the “front,” and in the case with libraries, the circulation desk. The “backstage” is where players are out of view of the audience, and in the library is usually technical services (e.g. cataloguing) and the staff lunch room. What is most fascinating is the “make work” role-playing, where librarians are supposed to appear as if they are working even though they are playing sudoku on their computers, looking busy as if they are at work when in reality they are just “phasing out.”

(4) Other roles – Librarians and users often play roles outside of their realm and not in the script. For example, librarians might clean up after a flood even if this is not written in the contract; however, this is a duty that he must perform for the play to function.

(5) Communicating out of order – Even the best librarians cannot be in their roles 24/7. Hence, it is not uncommon for them to talk “out of character” with expletives and loose their cool from time to time.

(6) Skilled Performers’ Attributes – Loyalty, humour, thinking on one’s feet. Ah yes, the questions that interviewers ask. The skills for success in performances are often the very ones required of librarians. If a rowdy patron stirs up trouble by refusing to leave during closing time, much like an audience member who heckles the actors during the play, it is ultimately the skilled librarian who defuses the situation with as little damage and notice as possible.

The MLS as Union Card?

I recently came across Phillip Jones and Jamie Stiver’s Good Fences Make Bad Libraries: Rethinking Binary Constructions of Employment in Academic Libraries in Portal, a wonderful Open Access journal. The article is illuminating in that it adds another layer to the professional vs. paraprofessional discourse in the world of librarianship. The article disputes some of the arguments made by previous scholars. Jones and Stivers make some fine arguments which, in my opinion, should be required discussion for every intake of LIS students.

(1) Is the “bifurcate model” which pits the professional librarian with the paraprofessional member(s) of the library still sustainable? The authors argue that in our post-industrial world, defining librarianship by minimalizing paraprofessionals is “tragicomic.” Instead of pettily bickering over the exact duties of job positions, we should focus on teamwork for the information environment to function properly. What is the point of arguing if you can't even get the job done?

(2) Librarians are not doctors. Arguments have been made that librarianship is a profession very much like law or medicine or accounting. But no, the authors take this grand argument back to reality, and argues that it is unfair to put librarianship in the same rank with doctors. We are professionals, but let’s leave it at that.

(3) The “Fence” has to be put down. There seem to be unwritten rules all around us which rebuffs paraprofessionals from entering the “librarian” world. One example is fees for participating in professional associations. While LIS students can pay lower fees, non-library professionals and students are either refused entry or forced to pay higher remittances. This is clear discrimination.

(6) Unfortunately, Stivers and Jones does not add to the fray with any fresh solutions or alternatives. Rather, they admit that they prefer to remain “on the fence,” arguing that librarianship is one of “responsibilities” versus “tasks.” Although librarians perform many of the same routines as their library assistants and staff do (e.g. taking out the garbage or answering the phone), at the end of the day, the librarian is ultimately charged with the responsibility of managing the library.

Although an MLS does not a good librarian make, it is unfortunately the only credential which is currently available which sets apart the professional and paraprofessional. To use a crude analogy, many pursue an MBA not because they are more diligent than their peers, but because they are ambitious and enjoy future challenges. In order to do so, they need the proper “networking” and training to do so. Whether they really become competent managers is really determined on the job.

The question is thus, is the MLS an MBA? Yes and No. Once on the job, let the curriculum's training of the so-called "professional" do the real talking.

The Never Ending Wonders of Google

I followed up on Google Scholar with an article I came across by James Caufield, Where did Google Get Its Value, which is not only fascinating and thought-provoking, but also forced me to think of the search engine within the library domain, not as a complement to the electronic and hardcopy collections, but ultimately as a "predecessor" of Google.Whether Google's success is based on the shoulders of librarianship is certainly up for debate (one in which I'd like to reserve front row seats for), it does offer food for thought in how we use and perceive Google and search engines. Here is what Caufield says are the strengths and weaknesses of Google:

Strengths
(1) Better Indexing – As Caufield argues, “Google brings a library value to the web environment [by] improved access through better Indexing." I'm certainly much more enlightened now on the mechanics of how Google works. (So that's what separates Google from the rest. . . ). Indeed, while other websites blindly ranks the relevance/importance of a website based on the number of key terms that a website has, Google uses a unique algorithm that ranks webpages based on the links that it has to other relevant websites. In many ways, this is almost as if the internet is "peer-reviewed," and relevance is constantly upheld by other websites. Whereas websites can get away on other search engines by simply padding their websites with any key terms to cover the wide spectrum of subjects, Google restricts this practice. If you highlight the rest of this line, you'll know what I mean. (See, you use the entire dictionary just to fill up entire pages with words! How ingenious yet devious!)

(2) Better Access through Simple and Disinterested User Interface - Instead of urging the user to stay within the same page for the purposes of advertising and data collection, Google erased this questionable practice when it introduced its plain and simple search engine box. What this did was improve access, and allowed the user to obtain information in a much timely fashion. (In other words, it made thing quick and tidy).

(3) Google Brings the Library Value of Unbiased Selection to the Web Environment - Unlike other web search engines, Google didn't accept any advertising fees. (Hence, the simple user interface). What this did was that content from its searches were uncorruptable, since all materials were on equal footing -- one didn't and couldn't pay money to get material slotted to a higher ranking.

(4) Google Produces Better Access through Uncorrupted Indexing - With some controversy, Google also "punishes" websites that try to manipulate and break the Google PageRank algorithm. So-called Search Engine Optimization plays by Google's rules and increases the ranking of webpages by creating inbound links. However, Google counters such moves by manipulating its own algorithms to match that of culprits. But in the end, who manipulates who? And at what cost? As the Machiavellian conundrum goes, "Does the end justify the means?"

(5) The Reference Interview - This one caught me offguard. However, Google apparently processes a reference transaction very much like a librarian by having cookies attached to every user. By having a history of the searches made by a user, Google has a better and more focused understanding of the user's need.

Negatives
(1) Privacy! - Not surprisingly, with cookies come problems of privacy. Indeed, one can see how Google can keep track of search histories simply by having it up on the RSS feeds. It's widely available for anyone to see his or her own searches. Which is nice if one is comfortable with it; however, if users share the same computers (or is unaware that they are), then privacy issues can certainly emerge.

Yahoo!
Interestingly, I have not been entirely aware of the conveniences of Google until only quite recently. For years, I have preferred Yahoo.com due to its familiarity (it's been around since 1994). While countless search engines have come and gone, Yahoo! has always stayed faithfully by my side throughout my online experiences. Moreover, not only has it been quite consistent with its user interface throughout its existence, it has a handy indexing system that separates different subjects for the user - not that anyone really uses it. . . ) But nonetheless, Google is the preferred choice of most users, and it seems as if it is here to stay for quite a while. Which leads me to a short anecdote. During an interview, the librarian asked me what search engine I prefer using. Naturally (and naively) I stood up for Yahoo! However, my reasoning was illogical in that I admitted that I liked it for nostalgic purposes. Hindsight is always 20/20, but if I had another chance. . .

Google Scholar

As fodder for future discussion, BMB Librarian Dean Giustini suggested that I read Neuhaus, et al.’s “The Depth and Breadth of Google Scholar: An Empirical Study.” The authors ask a series of questions, (1) How often is this database updated? (2) Does Google Scholar have particular disciplinary strengths and weaknesses? (3) How does the content of Google Scholar compare with that of other databases. To do this, the study compared the contents of 47 databases to Google Scholar. Here are the points which I found most germane to the discussion.

Weaknesses
(1) Time – Despite it’s vast net of coverage, the drawback of Google Scholar is that it is slow. As the authors discover in one example, there is at least a three-month time lag existed for uploading the information that appeared in BioMed Central Scholar into Google.

(2) Subject coverage – Google Scholar’s “short comings” is that its coverage is biased towards the sciences while its coverage of databases in other areas is somewhat poor. Thus, as a researcher in the humanities, education, business, and social sciences, using Google Scholar might not be as advantageous.

(3) No content collection statement – If Google Scholar had a detailed description of its content collection methodology, it would certainly allow users greater insight into the capabilities and limitations of the inner workings of Google Scholar. Because it doesn’t, researchers are basically grasping at straws.

Strengths
(1) Coverage - Despite its short comings on certain subjects, Google Scholar nonetheless has an expansive cast of open access journals, freely accessible databases, and single publisher databases – at the core strength of what Google Scholar offers is free content. Not just any free content, but scholarly-type information (both books and journals), which is immensely useful for information-seekers.

Interestingly, Based on the work that I am currently doing at the SFU Faculty of Health Sciences’ Centre for Applied Research on Mental Health and Addictions, I have had the serendipitous opportunity to do a lot of research from a user's point of view, particularly with health-related topics and issues.

My supervisor, Matthew Queree, a Researcher at SFU's Faculty Health Sciences who is particularly adept and quite experienced in mental health and addictions-related research in the areas of psychiatry and psychology, is an avid supporter of Google and particularly Google Scholar, arguing that they have revolutionized the way that research is done by scholars. With his enthusiastic backing, and insight from a "user’s" perspective, I was curious to do my own comparisons.

Methodology:
Key words used: (1) mental health; (2) primary care; (3) health care reform

Thoughts and Reflections:
(1) Commercial Websites – Although there is wide assortment of sources that is available onGoogle Scholar, I noticed that a great deal of these are "commercial" sites, and not articles like those I'd find in a journal. Thus, there is still a "search engine" element that slips through in Google Scholar, which may or may not be of benefit to the user. (It all depends on the objective of the user, I suppose...)

(2) Search Results – If not carefully limited, the search results can go into the tens of thousands of hits. As a result, it can be a rather frustrating experience for the user to sort through the diverse array of materials. For example, what is most frustrating about Google Scholar (based on my own experimenting) is the lack of chronological ordering. Articles that date as far back as the 1970's can be found together with recent materials in the 2000's. This results in hodge-podge combinations of results which the user must sort through him or herself in the end. In most electronic databases (such as PsycINFO), results can be sorted chronologically, thus allowing the user to find materials which are most current.

(3) Bibliographic Control - As the scholar Patrick Wilson said, the ultimate bibliographic instrument is one that can procure the "best textual mean's" to one's ends (i.e. finding as much information in as little time and as little effort as possible). If such is the case, then Google Scholar is only half-successful. However, like Neuhaus et al. argues, without a clear collection statement, it is somewhat teleological to argue that Google Scholar comes up short when compared to electronic databases. Perhaps that is not the primary function of Google Scholar; perhaps there it exists to serve other purposes. If so, I'd like to know!